The Witcher 3 Leaks Early, Beware Spoilers

Though The Witcher 3 doesn't officially release until 19 May, many gamers around the world already have access to the beast-hunting title. The reason? Some stores are selling the game early.

This means that if you want to go into the game fresh, you may want to be careful about what you look at on the internet. Just to be safe. Already there are a number of Twitch streams of players who have PS4 and Xbox One copies of the games, though Twitch says players streaming the game early will face consequences:

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is not allowed for broadcasting until May 19, 2015. Broadcasting before this date is subject to DMCA guidelines.

To wit, a few streams I was watching earlier today that had thousands of viewers got banned shortly after broadcasting footage:

Regardless, there are already screenshots and videos floating around the web, and popular hubs such as Reddit and neoGAF are having discussions about spoilers. We've reached out to CD Projekt Red to ask about how they're dealing with the situation, but they did not respond in time for publication.

A few months ago, a YouTuber gained access to The Order: 1886 prior to launch and uploaded the entirety of a playthrough online, for everyone to see. The leak ended up derailing the launch of the game, as players saw what they considered to be unfavorable footage. Occurrences such as these are not uncommon of course — games leak all the time.

What makes newer leaks interesting is that they're happening in the age of YouTube and Twitch, when everything can and will be documented. Publishers and developers haven't really adapted to this reality, and instead try fruitlessly to shut down or punish leaks from gamers as best they can.

A few months ago, a YouTuber gained access to The Order: 1886 prior to launch and uploaded the entirety of a playthrough online, for everyone to see. The leak ended up derailing the launch of the game, as players saw what they considered to be unfavorable footage. Occurrences such as these are not uncommon of course — games leak all the time.

This will never be a bad thing for the consumer, in fact it's a great thing for the developer/publisher too BUT only if the game is any good. It lets the game speak for itself instead of some marketing strategy and\or extremely restrictive previews.

Of course at the end of the day publishers only really care about one thing - money. It's why most AAA games have a marketing budget as large as development (and in some cases many times larger).

Originally released on November 27th, 1998 in Japan, the Dreamcast was a shot at redemption after Sega's last console, the Saturn, had a less than stellar time competing with the Playstation and Nintendo 64. Something had to change in order for Sega to keep a horse in the console race. The Dreamcast had it all: incredibly powerful graphics, online capability through dial up, and a playful take on media. Hell, the memory card, also known as the Visual Memory Unit (or VMU) had a screen built into it. Sega was here to play and they did it wonderfully.